Friday, May 13, 2011

After every trip up there to help, it's days before I can close my eyes without seeing hay and straw stuck on or through everything, twisted metal, broken trees and glass everywhere. What's almost worse, though, are the ghost images, where memory fills in the missing buildings, and seeing an object, or rather, parts of it, makes you remember where it used to sit. I could almost hear the sound of the wind when I stood in the midst of what used to be a beautiful grove of trees, like an echo of the tornado that ripped through the farm.

I can't imagine what it must be like to go through that every single day.

My biggest heroes are my aunt Paula, my uncle Jim, and my parents for helping take care of them and the mess. I have no idea how they have made it through the past five weeks, except that it is an Iowa-thing. I only wish I could send them all on a vacation somewhere tropical and quiet, as I know they are exhausted, and have all of the work finished by the time they come back.